Microsoft's CLR - Providing a Break from HW Vendors?

eyefish asks: "Is Microsoft's Common Language Runtime CLR (document in PDF form) really a way for Microsoft to slowly stop depending on hardware vendors like Intel to drive the Windows platform, and in the long run as a way to build a hardware-independent Windows platform to fight Java? I'd like to ask the Slashdot community what their thoughts are on this matter. Is there something preventing the CLR from being truly platform independent, now or in the future? How does it compare to the Java Virtual Machine?"

"It seems to me that once the CLR has matured enough, there won't be a need for Microsoft to wait for others to innovate on the hardware front and start offering its own hardware (and charge whatever it wants for it) to go with future versions of Windows.Net. Worst still, 99.99% of the population will not be able to say no to this strategy since they'll have no choice but continue using the Windows monopoly in order to run their favorite apps."

Jamie comments: I don't think it's about hardware innovation, or beating Java. It's about absolute control.

The big money over the next decade will be in transforming the computer into an entertainment device. AOL Time-Warner sees a computer as a revenue producer, with the unfortunate ability to copy digital works. They and the other five media giants want to put a stop to it; Microsoft and Intel will find it very profitable to help them.

One good step along the way is to give the computer a common interpreted language to run everything. We're there already. And when developers have to code to a virtual machine, not the actual bare iron, then whoever writes the virtual machine holds all the cards. And since the authors of the virtual machine will make a lot of money by enforcing intellectual property rights, the arms races are all over: copy protection is absolute, DeCSS won't compile, unauthorized MP3s won't play.

Of course developers rarely write on the bare metal anyway: we write to APIs, we write scripts, we write code that doesn't (need to) run in the CPU's supervisor mode. We're used to surrendering the ultimate control over the machine to the operating system, or to be more precise, to the BIOS that decides how and which operating system to run.

If we surrender this control, though, we'll find ourselves with a monopoly operating system that makes it impossible freely to write code for. (And it's not hard to cut off Linux and every other rogue free OS at the knees. The day that every motherboard's BIOS uses strong crypto to demand the master boot record be signed with a secret key known only to Microsoft is the day that Linux becomes a thing of the past.)

Naturally, to prevent you from firing up GCC and doing a rogue compilation of DeCSS or Lame or other unauthorized code, the operating system will have to stop you from running anything that isn't written in its language for its virtual machine. Requiring code to be signed by a central authority will make its first appearance as virus-prevention but its real purpose too will be control. Universities will be able to buy special licensed exemptions, at least until corporations decide universities are hotbeds of piracy and theft. At which point your alma mater begins teaching Computer Science 101 (and 201, and 301, and 401) in C#.

My prediction is that, unless antitrust legislation in the U.S. gets some teeth between now and then, the PC will become a Gameboy within fifteen years. Enjoy computers while they last.

Comments

Re:Paranoia

[Rayonic]

Wait... let me get this straight. So, soon in the future, MS will take over the government and hire "firemen" who actually go around finding and burning books? And TV's will be wall-size? And I'll be able to get fresh blood transfusions every day?

(And they said I couldn't read a book and browse Slashdot at the same time!)

Slow OS thats for sure!

[miffo.swe]

I dont think MS can accomplish this with their current codebase. Its far to bloated and hardware dependant. The level of hardware abstraction that MS would be forced to do to keep backward compability is astonishing. On linux that has a slick small kernel its hard enough but think of the size of MS "kernel"? This would most likely make their OS significantly slower than *nix and others. A complete rewrite of the NT kernel would be a hefty task and is not likely in the near future.

New cross-platform education site

[goingware]

I have started a new site, mainly for the purpose of educating programmers on how to do cross-platform programming. It is at www.byteswap.net.

I've written my first article in a planned regular column there, Writing Cross-Platform Software - Getting Started.

While it will be a while, I do plan a number of articles on virtual machines.

Re:I'm not a programmer...

[ImaLamer]

I'm a troll but /. isn't?

The editors went to worse extremes. I guess that MS not only rigs polls but moderates on /. too.

Microsoft does want to control what you do with your computer. It's not a crazy plot to take over the world... it's a plot to get exclusive rights to the DRM market.

Well, if they get DRM they get the rest too...